NPR News Now - NPR News: 06-04-2025 11AM EDT

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

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The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore it when big, even world-changing events are happening. That's where the Up First podcast comes in. Every morning and under 15 minutes, we take the news and pick three essential stories so you can keep up without getting stressed out. Listen now to the Up First podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. The Pentagon may rename ships and installations that honor civil rights leaders.

NPR's Quill Lawrence reports that includes the U.S. Navy ship Harvey Milk, named for the slain gay rights leader. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered an internal review, according to his spokesman, to make sure names of ships and bases reflect President Trump's priorities. But a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak tells NPR Hegseth has already directed the Navy to remove Harvey Milk's name from the ship that has honored him since 2016. Milk served in the Navy and later became one of the country's leading gay rights leaders. He was assassinated in 1978. The official said the review includes ships named

for civil rights pioneers Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall, and Medgar Evers, suffragist Lucy Stone, labor leaders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, and even Harriet Tubman, who freed enslaved people and led Union troops during the Civil War. Quill Lawrence, NPR News. The Senate is reviewing the multi-trillion dollar spending package backed by President Trump. NPR's Deepa Sivaram reports tucked away in the bill is a provision on artificial intelligence that's dividing some Republican members. In the bill the House passed, there's a provision that says that most laws about artificial intelligence that states have passed will be paused for 10 years. Republicans in favor of the provisions say there's inconsistency in how states have addressed

AI protections, and they don't want limits on AI innovation as the U.S. competes with China over the technology. But if state laws are paused, then there are virtually no legal protections against potential abuses of AI. Congress has been debating over passing federal regulation for years but still hasn't acted. Republican senators like Missouri's Josh Hawley and Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn have vocally opposed the provision as the upper body deliberates. Deepa Sivaram, NPR News. A Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is demanding answers from Commerce Secretary Howard

Lutnick. He wants to know why employees fired by the Commerce Department were denied health care coverage for which they had already paid. As NPR's Andrea Hsu reports, some employees are facing thousands of dollars in medical bills. The committee's acting top Democrat, Stephen Lynch, sent Lutnick a letter after hearing from fired Commerce Department employees. Hundreds were fired as part of the Trump administration's purge of more recent hires, then reinstated

under court order, then fired again in mid-April when an appeals court lifted that order. Belatedly, the employees were told that their health care coverage had ended in early April, two days before they were fired the second time, even though they'd been continuously paying their health insurance premiums through their paychecks. Now Lynch wants to know why the Commerce Department has not honored its commitment to provide 31 days of healthcare coverage following a termination and refunded the premiums employees paid. Andrea Hsu, NPR News.

On Wall Street, the Dow is up more than 70 points. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. The Trump administration has revoked a Biden-era requirement that hospitals give emergency abortions to women in danger of their lives. That also included states where abortion is outlawed. But there is a federal law still on the books requiring hospitals to provide emergency reproductive care. So it's not clear if the Trump administration is instructing

hospitals to turn away women in medical emergencies. Closing arguments continue today in the sex crimes retrial of former movie producer Harvey Weinstein. New York prosecutors will finish summing up their arguments today. Weinstein is being retried after New York's top court overturned his earlier conviction. His California convictions on sexual assault, stand. Today, Vietnam has announced an end to its decades-long limit of two children per family. Ashish Valentine reports the move comes as Vietnam joins several other Asian nations struggling with low birth rates and population decline. Similar to China's one-child policy,

families in Vietnam used to face penalties if they had more than two children. China officially ended its one-child policy almost a decade ago, when it realized its population was aging rapidly. Vietnam's now doing the same, after its birthrate fell below the population replacement level a couple years in a row.

But raising the birthrate once it falls population replacement level a couple years in a row. But raising the birthrate once it falls has been tough throughout Asia. Vietnam's only the latest country to have to figure out how to deal with this increasingly global problem. For NPR News, I'm Ashish Valentine in Taipei. Again on Wall Street, the Dow is now up 68 points. I'm Korva Kuhlman, NPR News. On the Planet Money Podcast, you've seen them, those labels that say, Made in China points. I'm Korva Kuhlman, NPR News.